IDC has released its figures for shipments of tablet PCs in Q2 of 2013. There are huge rates of growth in unit-shipments for Android/Linux suppliers but the big story is that Apple’s market share of units is down dramatically
Vendor | Q2’13 Units | Q2 Unit Share (%) | Change in Share from 2012 (%) |
---|---|---|---|
Apple | 14.6 | 32.4 | -46 |
Samsung | 8.1 | 18.0 | +137 |
ASUS | 2.0 | 4.5 | +36 |
Lenovo | 1.5 | 3.3 | +124 |
Acer | 1.4 | 3.1 | +136 |
Others | 17.5 | 38.8 | +48 |
This is a dramatic loss of share in a single year for Apple and a huge gain in share for Free Software. That’s what happens when the market rather than backroom-dealers decide. Free Software beats the tar out of non-free software when it comes to price/performance, especially on ARM. The bottom will fall out of Wintel when the OEMs get that message. Notice the list. M$’s “partners” are on it and they are shipping much more Android/Linux than that other OS.
This is because Linux and Android have by far the most developers, so they have the most useful applications available.
Also the Free Software development tools have the best price 😉 and mostly also have the highest performance — again attracting developers.